I love my cat. No surprise there, as most pet owners do develop an emotional attachment to their critters. All in all, my cat is a pretty damn good cat. Except that she loves to chew on cords.
I’ve never had a pet that has done this, so imagine my surprise when I discovered my first plugged in mass of chewed wire. Due to my keen sense of observation, I deduced it was the cat, as I could not fathom my wife crawling behind the nightstand to gnaw on my phone cord.
I then examined all the cords in the apartment and you guessed it, all chewed up.
The wife was certain that there was something wrong with the cat, as she had never heard of this before. And unfortunately for Precious, she doesn’t understand that dogs and cats react differently to forms of discipline. You can rub a dog’s nose in a puddle on your carpet and eventually he gets the message. Do the same to a cat and the only response you’re likely to get is a ‘WTF you do that for???’. Thus her idea of ‘punishment’ was not gonna cut it.
So I hopped on the internet and did me some investigating. And guess what? Cats chew the hell out of cords all the time. There’s nothing wrong with my cat. Go figure. Says they do it for various reasons. It could be that they’re bored. Or practicing hunting skills. Or maybe just want to play.
But for whatever reason they chew, here are 8 things you can do to protect your cords (And Fluffy).
- Find your cords and minimize their accessibility. No duh.
- Hide your cords. Another brilliant suggestion that I never would have considered.
- Tape all dangling cords and use cord covers.
- Make cords unappealing. Spray or wipe down cords with something unappealing to the cat. You can use hot sauce, lavender oil, citrus, vinegar paste, garlic, Vicks, dish soap, etc.. You will have to re-apply these periodically. Also avoid using salt, because cats love salt. Now we’re getting somewhere.
- Disguise cords with tape. Both foil and double sided will do the trick. Cats hate sticky stuff.
- Try a loud noise or rapid action to distract the cat. But you need to catch them in the act or you’ll get the ‘WTF’ cat look described earlier.
- Try distraction. A piece of carpet, a cardboard box, or a chewy dog toy. Also leave plenty of cat toys around. This might help if Fluffy’s just bored and needs some entertainment. I keep a piece of rope lying around.
- Buy some cat grass. Grow a little planter specifically for your cat because many cats feel the need to chew on grass. And if there’s no grass around, they look for the next best thing, which are cords.
Well there you have it. The fruits of my research. While I doubt only one solitary action is going to stop your little fur ball from destroying your cords, a combination of several will probably do the trick. I think I’m going to try 1, 4, 5, and 8.
And if you continue to see pictures of Precious on my wife’s Facebook page, you know it worked. If she mysteriously disappears from them….welllll, Precious probably electrocuted her way through all nine lives. Stupid cat. k
